Tag Archives: Government Regulations

A story out of Corpus Christi Texas has just sent my mind reeling. First I will credit Todd Starnes of Fox News for bringing this to my attention and say any quotes in this story are from his report on this incident. Let’s begin with the insanity.

It seems a business owner in Corpus Christi like to keep the front of his restaurant clean. One day he was washing bid poop off the sidewalk of his establishment. What happened next borders on the ridiculous.

A restaurant owner in Corpus Christi, Texas is furious after city officials threatened him with a $2,000 fine for using a garden hose to wash away bird droppings on the sidewalk in front of his business.

“They told me I can’t wash it off because I’m polluting,” said John Webb, general manager of Crawdaddy’s, a family-owned restaurant in downtown. “It’s like they want me to go out of business.”

Huh? Washing bird droppings is polluting? How is that possible. Birds poop on the surface of the earth quite often and I have never heard of it being a pollutant. So the business owner very wisely asked the city official for guidance. What comes next is sublime.

“For the last 18 years we’ve just been washing it off with a water hose,” he said. “But a guy from the city came out here and told me if I washed my sidewalk off again I was going to get a fine.”

Webb said he was threatened with a $2,000 fine.

“He said ‘Well, you can’t wash it off because you’re polluting,’” he recalled.

The city official reportedly told Webb that he had two options – he could either hire a professional cleaning crew to remove the bird poop – or he could just let the rain wash it away. Webb said he was dumbfounded.

I was dumbfounded too. Bear in mind this is Texas, one of the states with the least regulations on many things in the country. So let’s break this conversation down. If I hire a clean up crew to remove small splats of bird droppings from my sidewalk what would that do to my expense line? How would that effect my work force? More importantly if I let the rain fall wash it away how effective will that be and where would the runoff go? You got it the same place it will go if I wash it off.

The article cited the city official as saying this.

Webb said he was told that civilians cannot wash away bird droppings because it was “against city, state and federal law – I was polluting the bay.”

Tell a friend:

Like this:

You are an engaged parent and you actually take the time to pack a lunch for your child. Off she goes to a preschool program. At lunch time the sack lunch you packed is scrutinized and determined not to reach government standards. How dare you pack Ho-Hos and Twinkies in your child’s lunch! There is only one problem with this scenario, that is not what you packed. What was in the sack? Here is what the mother reported was packed in the bag via a Newscore report copied for the Fox affiliate for LA.

The West Hoke Elementary School student’s lunch box — which contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice

Imagine the horror the food police must have endured when the “inspected” the child’s lunch! SO what did the Food Police at this North Carolina school do? Supplement the healthy meal with a vegetable? Nope they took her lunch and gave her a government approved platter of which the child only ate three chicken nuggets because she did not like anything else on the plate. To make matters worse since the child was not part of the lunch program they sent a bill to the mother for $1.25. I have to tell you this event would send me into a fit the likes no one has ever seen. But what is not the question, the real question is why. Here is the answer.

A regulation from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services says lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — even those brought from home — should adhere to the USDA guidelines. If a student’s packed lunch lacks any of the required items, the child should be provided with the missing foods.

The USDA suggests meals should contain one meat portion, one serving of milk, one serving of grains and two portions of fruit or vegetables.

The federal government is mandating what your child must eat at school and states are placing inspectors (this school has one) in schools to make sure you are feeding your children according to their standards. When will we wake up and call an end to this madness. Are we free people or not? According to the USDA we are not. If your child goes to a preschool they must eat what the government says whether you pack it or not. Are you starting to see the picture. I have said from the time I started this blog that the government agencies are out of control and this is further proof of that.

Folks it is time to rise up and be counted. We are being regulated into submission by our government. The time to act is now. Stop the madness and force congress to take back its power and stop letting agencies of the government write laws. Every regulation written by a government agency has the weight of law behind it. Each agency has investigative wings to make sure the people do as they are told. This is not the United States I want for my children.

Call your Senators and Representatives, go to a campaign event for the candidate of your choice (or all of them for that matter) and try to ask the question about congressional oversight of agencies.